Perceptive Enterprise Search supports extensions that allow scripting and execution of custom applications, from within the pages served by the Perceptive Enterprise Search Server.
Perceptive Enterprise Search can execute CGI applications or ISAPI DLLs that reside under /cgi/ or are mapped to a particular URL. CGI applications are typically win32 executables that print their output to the console, while ISAPI DLLs are compatible with the Microsoft IIS ISAPI extension framework.
When Perceptive Enterprise Search processes a request, it first checks the extension list. If the request matches the criteria of URL, File Pattern and Verb, the request will be passed to the extension. After the request has been passed to the extension, Perceptive Enterprise Search will do no further processing of the request.
Perceptive Enterprise Search supports two modes when operating with extensions, standard or post processes. A standard extension handles the request in its entirety, Perceptive Enterprise Search will not process any Perceptive Enterprise Search symbols. Post process extension are run on the output of Perceptive Enterprise Search, which means that all ISYS:symbols will be fully evaluated before being passed to the extension.
Perceptive Enterprise Search ships with PHP 4 & 5 extensions pre-installed to handle PHP scripts.
PHP is a freeware scripting engine that can be embedded in web pages to allow dynamic generation of output by the server. When enabled, files ending in .php will have any PHP code inside them executed server-side before they are served to the user. Documentation on how to use PHP and its wide variety of applications can be found at http://www.php.net.